Summer Friday BBQ, Beverage, Bonfire and Northern Lights (?) Thread
Mates,
Summer is here and time is right for dancing in the streets. It's also a great time to be outside enjoying the Michigan summer - the weather in our state has been pretty great this week. Also, there is at least some thought that the Northern Lights might appear, although some reading I did later today made it seem like the best Northern Lights might not be here until next week - apparently being 93 million miles away makes long distance radiation storms take a while to hit. That April show of lights was pretty epic - the best I've ever seen below the bridge, no doubt.
Regardless, it's Friday night and what is in your cup, on your plate/BBQ? Got a bonfire going? Did you take time off this week besides the 4th? What else is going on?
Hope you are well,
XM
here is a link to the NOAA website on the 'space weather', e.g., chance of seeing northern lights:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/space-weather-enthusiasts-dashboard
I am going to Isle Royale on Monday-Friday. What are they saying about northern lights during those days. I looked up the link and it’s like reading hieroglyphics.
i read earlier that now they are saying 7/13, thursday, might be the best night.
Over nearly 30 years ago on Isle Royale, I saw the most intense display of the northern lights I have ever seen before or since. It was almost too vivid and bright and active to be believed. Good luck to you!
Got some bug so my cup has water and I've eaten 4 saltines since yesterday morning. Good times.
well that's a bummer. it's one thing to get the crud in winter, but summer time, no bueno.
have you considered something more than saltines?
I don't think I could handle that roughage right now.
Make sure to drink some KoolAid to stay hydrated! (Hope ya feel better!)
Only blue. Don't drink that red stuff.
Username checks out.
You to eh? I’ve had a sore throat and ear ache like a 5 yr old for 2 weeks tomorrow. No strep and or ear infection. What really chaps my ass is I’ve had this week off. While I’m not sick enough to just go to bed, I feel just bad enough to have not had any fun this week.
The Northern Lights are on my Bucket List. Alaska is #50 on my States Visited list, with Rhode Island crossed off last year, Maybe I’ll get a chance to kill to birds with one plane ticket… some day.
Bourbon and a cigar out back for my Friday night.
Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island.
Well, watch the headlines for the northern lights this week. They could be pretty dramatic but hopefully not oversold on the possibility of seeing them.
nice back deck combo.
Taking two of the boys back to Alaska in three weeks to see my friends. Looking forward to that, big time.
How do you define a state "visited"? For my list I needed to sleep overnight in a state or stop and see some attraction in that state (like seeing Yellowstone in all of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana in the same day; also: visiting the four corners.)
I didn't want to include airport layovers or just driving through some state on the way somewhere.
just curious how other people do their lists 🤷♂️
We have a sticker map on our camper. Our rule is, we can only put a new state sticker on it if we stay overnight or do an activity in said state.
I had a flight to Denver through Austin last week. We had a few hour layover so some friends picked us up at the airport and took us to the original Chuy's (where the Bush twins got in trouble for underage drinking). We didn't have much time but had a margarita and chips.....and then headed back to the airport. It was a short stay but we got out of the airport and had a "meal". I'm counting Texas as a state I've visited. Made it to Colorado and Wyoming on this trip, too. 15 more states to go.
How do you define a state "visited"
If i was in the state, I visited it. For example, on a work trip we drove from Kansas City to Hutchinson and hopped on a four seat plane for a trip to Enid, OK. I was there several hours for work and we left on the same plane. Oklahoma is checked off on my list.
Alaskan Ferry could be an interesting way to go. Can fly into SEATAC and take a bus shuttle right to the ferry terminal in Bellingham.
“Alaskan Ferry could be an interesting way to go.”
Having your nuts bit off by a Laplander, that’s the way I want to go.
I heard that the #1 question people have when walking off the boat and seeing the mountains is: “What’s the elevation here?”
The locals point to the water and say “sea level”. Some still don’t get it.
Drinking Jack Daniel's Gentleman Jack and just finished the leftover lasagna my mom gave me from the 4th, all while watching Picture a Perfect Christmas starring Merritt Patterson on the Hallmark Channel. Life is good!
I did enjoy a bonfire this week, but I don't think you meant this AC/DC boxset.
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Well, Martha, the Vandellas, the wife, and I juuuuust finished dancing in the streets to celebrate having packed up everything locally that's finally being relocated to younger dude's new home. Take out pizza (because someone else has the energy to cook tonight) and some ice cold something will be in our cups. The movers will take it all away and then make it magically reappear several hours away this week.
And the rebuild continues on the older dude's condo. Insulation, sheetrock, plastering done, flooring and minor electrical this next week. Painting following week. And then we move (or watch much younger bodies move) all his stuff back in.
Vacation? Whut, do tell, is a vacation?
Life is still good! It just gets a bit more interesting at some times than at others. 👍👍
and your remodel? any progress there or holding off until the sons get done with their stuff?
Ah, yes. That is delayed until all offspring are properly settled. We are so looking forward (/s) to the second half of younger dude's move, this part going from NYC to his new home. That comes in a few weeks ...
The best part of all this? The kids genuinely appreciate our efforts. Second best? It will be nice to sit back with the gem and quietly say to each other, "they are in good places, physically and emotionally".
I know you get that ...
Packing the Fifth Wheel tonight to take my elderly parents camping for the next two. Sunday is the annual family reunion at my cousin's property on the White River, and my dad is the last of his generation, so we do our best to show up. Used to be lots of my aunts and uncles and cousins would camp, but now I'm the only one who does it nearly every year.
Driving back home Monday morning and closing on my new mini-farm on Monday afternoon. Got all the financial wire transfers and such taken care of yesterday and today, so Monday it's just the formalities and paper-signing. The people I'm buying from are my new neighbors, and I've met them already a couple times, and they seem to be a) good people and b) happy to have me taking over their five-generations family homestead. I think my wife would be very happy with my choice.
Being retired, I took every day off this week from work, but I kept plenty busy due to events relating to the previous paragraph. Tonight's beverage of choice is a Lansing Brewing Company 'Joe in Black' ale. It is dark and light at the same time. Similar concept as Perrin Brewing Company's Black Ale.
Congrats on the closing details of the farm. Have you already laid out where you’re gonna put your super fancy horticultural gardens?
Some vague plans, yes, but mostly ideas. Probably need to put up fencing first, as I have little desire to feed Bambi and family any gourmet salads. Much to do initially with the house, plus taking care of my parents, so I'm telling myself that I won't do a whole lot of gardening until spring. Telling myself, but not convincing myself. I do have to move over a few key specimens from the current place, but some of them may just go into a temporary bed for now. Also reminding myself that gardens aren't built, they evolve.
One of my ideas includes only selecting species and cultivars that existed and were somewhat readily available in Michigan in 1901, when this farmhouse was built. Not that the homesteading family would have spent their money on ornamentals after living in a log cabin for more than forty years!
Pasta Bolognese, asparagus, Belle Glos Pinot Noir, all outside in this beautiful state I inhabit. Often wish I were further north..
Had the greatest dinner companion too! My beautiful wife!
Enjoy your weekend everyone.
.
BIL here for the weekend. He brought a wonderful corned beef brisket and some wonderful bourbon and rye. Sitting on the back porch enjoying the beautiful summer evening and sipping on a pour of Sagamore Double Oak Rye.
Cheers to everyone and have a great big beautiful Meeeechigan summer evening!!
Smoking a Rocky Patel Decades and sipping on a bottle of Chattanooga whisky Founders Edition bottle.
Misread the packaging and ingested roughly 15 times more THC than I intended.
So.
Tonight's gonna be an experience.
Incidentally, Northern Lights is one of my favorite cannabis strains of all time.
THC should be worried about being ingested by Chuck Norris
Hope you had a good night. All I can think of is Dan Ackroyd as Jimmy Carter counseling the kid on an acid trip:
“Right, you did some orange sunshine. Everything is going to be fine, you’re just very high and you’ll probably be that way for about five more hours. Try taking some Vitamin B or C complex. If you have a beer, go ahead and drink it. Jut remember, you’re a living organism on this planet, you’re safe. You’ve just taken a heavy drug. Relax, stay inside, and listen to some music. Do you have any Allman Brothers?”
Ate some dinner with an old friend while passing through Pittsburgh this afternoon. Started off the day in Niagara and currently stopped overnight somewhere by a river in West Virginia with the brother in law and his family.
No fire tonight, but we have some French Canadian beers that we're pounding along with a bottle of miyagikyo single malt we're finishing off.
Cheers MgoHillbilly 🥃.
I'll save you a sample of the Sagamore Double Oak Rye. I know you like the oak heavy pours.
Hope you and the family are having a great road trip in the new RV.
another amazing road trip. niagra - pittsburgh - WV. are you pulling the new camper?
Thanks, Blue! Xm, we do have the new one in tow. Treating this as a shakedown trip to find out what needs to be fixed under warranty. So far it's been Georgia to Maine (Acadia), PEI, Quebec, and Niagara. Going to fish a bit in the morning and then finish the trip home through Appalachia tomorrow. Fun trip. Since we were camping in the Keys about a month ago it was kinda the goal to make it all the way from the southernmost part of the continental US to the northernmost in the span of a month.
you have the coolest trips. please send pictures of fish. safe travels.
No fish, and I've tried. The lowlight of the trip. Fun animal encounters in the animal park though. 
Attended Saline’s Celtic Festival tonight. Drank some Two Hearted and some local mead from Great Mead Hall while listening to good Irish rock. Merry weekend, all.
Cool. Just drove by there this morning and people were already pouring in.
Aurora Borealis?
At this time of year?
At this time of day??
In this part of the country??
Localized entirely within your kitchen?
moonrise after midnight tonight, so now is the perfect time. unfortunately, we now have a cloud cover we didn't have during the day so no ability right now to see the northern lights, assuming they are 'up' tonight.
Lagunitas IPA and some patron. Maybe sit outside and enjoy the fire table since the rain is holding off.
I took off the 3rd and had the 4th off, so 4 day weekend and 3 day work week.
TGIF!
My wife's sister is visiting from California and offered to cook whatever we wanted. (My wife has health issues and can't do much cooking any more).
We had city chicken tonight and are having stuffed peppers tomorrow, both dishes being ones that they grew up with.
.Btw, city chicken is not chicken. It is cubed pork or other meat that is cubed, put on short wooden skewers then seasoned and fried like chicken, forming a mock chicken leg.
As workers moved to big cities for factory jobs in the early 20th century, they no longer had space to raise chickens, and with the meat packing industry in the cities, pork and even veal were cheaper and more available than chicken.
Shocked to see someone else mention city chicken. I always thought that was something my mom’s aunt made up for family gatherings.